Monday, October 1, 2012

Birth of a pair of Felt Boots

Two weekends ago, I had the good fortune to be able to take a boot felting class taught by Caren Engen at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, OR.  It was extra fun because several friends were also signed up.  All the ingredients were in place: friends, wool, soap and water.  Here is the evolution of my set of boots:

First we chose a color or colors for our boots; I chose green which I am sure was no great surprise to my family or friends (it's a genetic thing - Germans are born liking green as far as I can tell.)  We laid out thin strips of roving in multiple layers on a large plastic template like so:
After we made the wool wet, we worked for quite some time to get the fibers to cling to one another and keep the shape of the template:
Once enough felting had taken place, the template is removed.  As you can see, one still needs to full the boot extensively to get it to shrink down and fit on the foot.....This is one of my boots begore it was fulled.........
And here are the boots after fulling - success!



2 comments:

  1. Nice shaping! These will be nice and warm!

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  2. Thanks! This project was a lot of fun and I highly recommend Carin Engen as a felting teacher.

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